Space Monkey
by GiovanniBlasini
Summary: On the eve of her reactivation attempt, Rei Ayanami receives a visitor who's a bit lost. A glowing, ethereal, squid-like energy being visitor. Crossover with...well, you'll see.
1. Chapter 1

Space Monkey

Rei Ayanami sat calmly on her bed. Tomorrow, she would be attempting to again activate Evangelion Unit-00, and she was concerned that the part of her in her EVA would cause instability again, resulting, again, in a loss of control of Unit-00.

Rei had worked diligently to maintain her level of mental discipline, in order to prevent this from happening - while Rei knew she was easily replaced with one of the spare clones, damage to the EVA was time consuming and expensive to repair, and she did not wish to concern Commander Ikari, or make his duties more difficult because of her failure.

Having already disrobed in preparation, Rei lay down, pulled the covers over her head, and prepared to go to sleep. She soon found herself unable to do so, however, as the ambient light level in her room suddenly increased dramatically. Sitting up, she looked to the source of the light - an ethereal figure at the foot of her bed, hovering in midair, that looked very much like a glowing white squid. The figure coalesced into an unassuming man with sandy brown hair of above-average height. The stranger wore a sweater that was tan in color, and a pair of khaki pants. He looked, for all the world, like he was dressed to blend into desert sands, though the presence of the sweater made that seem a bit unlikely.

"Huh," he said, looking around, "this isn't where I was trying to go."

Rei merely stared at the stranger. She recognized that the man was speaking English, though her own ability with the language was relatively poor.

"Um, sorry," he continued in English. "Could you, perhaps, tell me where I am?" The man frowned, continuing to take in his surroundings, his eyes finally resting on Rei. He quickly turned away, blushing. "Oh, hey, sorry about that."

Considering the situation briefly, Rei decided on the only proper response. "I do not understand."

The man glanced back at her. She still hadn't gotten dressed, or even pulled the sheet to cover her nude torso. "Would Japanese be better?"

Rei simply nodded.

"OK, um, sorry." The man was still blushing, and attempting to both avert his eyes, while still converse with her directly. "I had said that this wasn't where I was trying to go, that I apologize, and then I asked if you could perhaps tell me where I am."

"You are in Tokyo-3."

The man turned and stared directly at her, the surpise clearly evident on his face. "Three? As in there are two others?"

Rei simply nodded.

"Wow. I _really_ ended up off the beaten trail, didn't I? This must not even be the same dimension."

The mention of dimensional travel, combined with his unusual entrance, finally overwhelmed Rei's curiosity. Calmly, she asked the stranger, "Who or what are you?"

"Let's try this again. I'm Daniel, and I'm an archaeologist. You could also say I am a traveler of both time and space." Daniel smiled. "What's your name"

"Rei." The girl frowned. "Your initial appearance was..." Rei found herself at a loss for words when dealing with this confusing stranger, "...different."

"Yeah....that's because I've Ascended to a higher plane of existence." Rei could hear the capital letter in the word "ascended". Meanwhile, her confusion must have been readily apparent, as Daniel continued to explain. "I was formerly a normal human, but am now an energy being. I accidentally ended up here because I'm still learning the extent of the rules that Ascended beings operate under. For example, quantum mechanics is a bit different for us." Daniel chuckled. "Sam would be pissed."

Choosing not to respond, Rei continued to stare at Daniel calmly.

"Hey, do you mind, um, covering up, or something?"

Rei was puzzled. "Why?"

"Uhh...because you're not dressed?"

Still puzzled, the girl stated, "It is not a concern."

It was now Daniel's turn to be puzzled. "Why?"

Answering as honestly as she could without divulging confidential information, Rei responded. "Because my body is of little concern."

Daniel looked around again, taking in the apartment's state of disarray, finally settling on no particular point. "I presume your surroundings are not, as well?"

"Correct." Rei truly did not concern hersef with the state of her apartment. It had no bearing on her duties.

Chuckling, Daniel couldn't help but smile. "I half-expected you to say 'Indeed'." Daniel had turned to look at the girl, and, suddenly, Rei could sense his demeanour change, the concentration evident on his face. "Rei...don't take this the wrong way, but what are you? I can sense that part of you is human, but..."

For the first time in their encounter, Rei could feel a chilly, tingling sensation creeping up her spine, starting from the small of her back, and terminating at the base of her neck. _'Is this fear?'_ Rei asked herself? For a girl had never been concerned about herself or her own safety, it was a nearly paralyzing sensation, and she found herself shivering.

Rei barely registered the shift in Daniel's demeanour again, as concern overwrote his curiosity. "I'm sorry, Rei, I didn't mean to frighten you."

Finding her voice, Rei barely squeaked out, "How could you know that?"

Daniel simply shrugged before sitting down on top of her sheets, and resting his hand on hers in an effort to calm her. "I'm not really sure. I ...just could. Like I said, I'm still learning the rules of bing Ascended, and what we can and can't do. I just suddenly felt that there was something different about you....hey, is that your natural eye color?"

Rei nodded. She was attempting to calm herself, and, incongruously, found Daniel to be a comfort. "It is."

"Hair too?"

Again, she nodded.

"OK. So, you're aware that there's something out of the ordinary about you, then, and I suspect you know what it is."

Attempting to maintain the cover story Commander Ikari had developed, Rei replied simply, "I am an albino."

Daniel smiled, and said "OK." Rei found herself suspecting that he did not believe her, but did not want to say so. "Rei, there's something else worrying me. It's like part of what makes up you as an individual, a part of your 'soul', so to speak, is elsewhere. I can kind of sense a thread leading to it. If you like, I can..."

"Please," Rei replied, the sense of fear inexplicably returning full force, "do not."

Nodding, Daniel said. "So, you know what it is, then?"

Rei simply nodded, still shivering.

Pulling her into his arms, Daniel sighed. "What did they do to you, Rei, and why?"

Finding herself unable to respond to Daniel, Rei shook her head.

"Whether you're fully human or not, Rei, and, trust me, it's not something that worries me that you aren't, whatever it was that's been done to you isn't right. You're not complete, Rei. It's like a part of yourself is missing, isn't it, but you don't know what, right?"

Desperately trying to center her mind and calm her emotional turmoil, Rei could barely respond. "I...I don't know." She could feel a wave of calmness radiating from Daniel, and tried to draw off of that, for a lack of a better term, energy, and drew herself closer to him. It helped. "Why..." Rei paused, collected her thoughts, and tried again. "Why do you have your arms around me?"

Daniel drew back for a moment, his attention to his immediate surroundings, and her, seeming to fade. "Rei...you're alone here, aren't you?"

"Yes." Rei replied, frowning, her sense of unease returning.

"Why? Does it have to do with your unusual nature?" Daniel asked, taking her hand again, as he sensed her emotional turmoil.

Finding it difficult to speak, Rei simply nodded again.

"Huh. OK, let me think about this...you're part human, part not. You said you're an albino, you seem to be a teenager, but don't have parents around...Rei, you're a genetic engineering experiment, aren't you? Wait, your soul's divided...cloned, maybe? But, why would..."

Rei listened to Daniel continue to try to puzzle out her nature. Finally, inexplicably, she found herself compelled to speak. "I am also an Evangelion pilot."

"Ah." Daniel responded. "What's an Evangelion?"


	2. Chapter 2

The not-really-human-anymore-but-still-using-his-old-name being known as Daniel Jackson stared at the unusual teen in front of him, trying to puzzle out the mystery she represented while, at the same time, trying to puzzle out **how** he knew that she was in the first place.

It had barely been two weeks since his mentor for all-things-Ascended, Oma Desala, had helped him to Ascend after the radiation poisoning he'd suffered from his exposure to naquadria on the planet Kelowna, just two weeks earlier. In that time, she'd shown him many of the bizarre and amazing things that came with being an Ascended energy being, including ways to manipulate loopholes in spacetime and quantum mechanics to travel across the vast reaches of space, and ways to conceal yourself from prying eyes and, perhaps even more important, the sensor devices of those still on, for lack of a better term, the "normal" plane of existence.

When he'd Ascended, Daniel had told Jack that he though might be able to do more good than when he was still a corporeal human. Today, perhaps, was when Daniel was really going to start doing exactly that - something about all this, about Rei, just seemed horribly _wrong_, in a way he couldn't quite describe. But, first, before he could help anyone, he needed the girl to answer his question, to explain what an "Evangelion" was, if only to find out more about what the hell had been done to her, and why.

The girl in question, though just continued to stare at Daniel, and he suspected that Rei was trying to decide what she could and could not tell him - having worked on a top secret project for so long, Daniel not only knew the expression well, but had undoubtedly worn it himself on occasion. Finally, her expression shifted, and Rei asked him, "Are you an Angel?"

While that wasn't the response Daniel was expecting, it wasn't, he supposed, completely unexpected, though the timing seemed strange - why not ask that earlier? "No, I'm not an angel, my name and...unusual nature to the contrary."

"Your name?"

"Huh...oh, you _didn't_ know. 'Daniel' is a Hebrew name, and means 'God is my judge'. I've never actually met a god, though."

"I see."

Daniel shrugged, then, waxing nostalgic for a moment, offered, "I've fought against those claiming to be gods, though, but, despite their claims, they really weren't. They were alien parasitic snakes."

Rei's eyes narrowed. "You are attempting to tease me."

"No, really, I'm not," Daniel frowned at her, "I'm very serious. In fact, one of them took possession of my wife. In my home universe, they were very much real, and a serious threat to intelligent species throughout the galaxy. I suspect, though, that things are a bit different here. But, as I asked, what's an Evangelion, and why is a teenager piloting it?"

The girl seemed reluctant to respond. "They are giant biomechanical humanoid weapon systems used to defend humanity against the entities known as Angels."

"Which is why you wanted to know if I was an angel, right? You didn't mean in a Biblical sense, necessarily." The girl nodded, prompting Daniel to continue. "What are these Angels like? Are they common knowledge?"

Rei appeared to consider Daniel's question for a moment. "Yes. Two have attacked Tokyo-3. The first was humanoid in appearance, and roughly fifty meters in height, while the second was comparable in size, and insectoid in nature."

Daniel wasn't sure why, but he sensed there was a great deal more Rei wasn't telling him...like why she thought it possible that he was one of, or at least related to, these enormous creatures. Oma had told him that, with practice, the Ascended could, to some degree, "read" the thoughts of corporeal beings, as they could sense the electrical impulses in their brains. In fact, if they weren't careful, the reverse was almost true as well - he wondered if she might be unconsciously responding to his emotional states, and desire to see her calm when she was agitated, just as much as he might be unconsciously be detecting her own thought patterns.

But he was still missing critical pieces of data he needed to solve the mystery of one very unusual teenage girl. Though, as unusual as she seemed, there was also something familiar about her, beyond her Teal'c-like stoicism. She almost reminded him of...Cassie.

Cassandra Fraiser. A young girl genetically engineered by the Goa'uld Nirrti in an attempt to create a "hok'tar", an advanced, superior human to serve the parasitic Goa'uld as a better, more powerful host. Meanwhile, there was Rei, who was part human, part...something else, who piloted a biomechanical giant against equally enormous monsters they called Angels.

Was she...Daniel stilled his growing dread, and did his best to project calmness and warmth, in the hopes that, maybe, she'd pick up on it subconsciously, and asked his question. "Rei, were you created to pilot an Evangelion?"

Rei blushed faintly, but nodded her head. "Yes."

"Why?"

"I am bonded to it."

_'Please be wrong, please be wrong...'_ "Bonded to it, Rei?"

The girl nodded again, frowning, as if picking up his dismay. "Yes," she replied definitively.

Suddenly, Daniel Jackson understood, better than he ever had before, how Jack O'Neill felt about the Orbanians, and how they used children to do their learning for them, essentially rendering them in an infantile state when they were done with them. The idea of not only having children fight their battles for them, but _engineering_ them for the task seemed horrifyingly wrong. And to be "bonded" to it? _'Oh my God,'_ Daniel thought, mentally recoiling in horror as the realization hit him, _'that's where the rest of her soul is.'_

His emotional states **must** have been having an affect on Rei, as the girl was beginning to shiver with what seemed to be fear again. _'I must be projecting ...Oma never warned me about that. Damn...' _Again, Daniel reached for his emotional stillness. He was going to try this again, this time, intentionally expressing, or projecting, or whatever it was he was doing with his emotions. Pulling Rei close to him for another hug, he let slip some of what he felt: he didn't want to project his anger at her creators onto Rei, or his distaste for what had been done to the girl, so Daniel chose to project the worry and concern he felt for the teen's well-being.

And, then, he waited. Slowly, the shivering stopped, as Rei responded to his efforts to both calm her and make clear that his emotions towards her were purely based on his concern for her. Finally, as the seconds stretched out into minutes, Rei spoke. "You are...concerned about me?"

Daniel smiled. "Yes, of course."

"Despite the fact that I am merely a replaceable clone?"

The Ascended human chuckled. "You're not the first clone I've met. And, yes, I'm concerned about you, Rei. You're still an individual, a sapient living being, clone or not. So, I'm concerned when I find out you were created to fight, that they took part of your soul, and bound it to a giant biomechanical weapon. Were you ever even given a choice?"

Rei shook her head, confused. "I was created to...fight the Angels. There was no choice in the matter. It had to be done."

"Yes, but why? Why couldn't they recruit volunteer soldiers to..." Something else suddenly clicked in Daniel's mind. "Rei, you said that these Evangelions are biomechanical in nature. They're partially organic, then?"

The girl nodded.

"The part of you that isn't human...comes from the same source as these Evangelions, didn't it, Rei?"

Reluctantly, Rei finally, after several seconds, replied, "Yes."

Daniel could sense the confusion in the girl. He really got the impression that she didn't converse or interact much with others, and that, perhaps, she was uncertain as to why she was doing so with him. Daniel suspected she'd probably divulged more that she was allowed to, and he wasn't really sure why. After all, while he had some vague ability to sense, or perhaps even project emotions, or maybe even thoughts, he couldn't make someone act against their will. At least, he really hoped not.

"You are no longer embarrassed."

It was Daniel's turn, evidently, to stare at Rei in confusion. "Excuse me, what?"

Rei frowned. "Initially, you seemed embarrassed by my lack of clothing. You no longer appear to be."

"Well, no, I suppose not," Daniel replied. "I mean, when you think about it, my 'natural' state is an incorporeal energy being. It's not like sexuality is really on my list of concerns these days. I suppose I was more embarrassed for you, since that would have been a common reaction for someone in your position."

Rei nodded in understanding. "But I am not concerned."

"Right, so I kind of just 'got over it'. If it doesn't bother you, then I'll try not ton let it bother me." Daniel sighed. "What does bother me, though, is the fragmentation of your soul. Rei, why did they feel the need to put part of your soul in the Evangelion?"

"The Evangelions did not have souls of their own, and so could not make an A.T. Field to protect themselves against the Angels, and to overwhelm those of the Angels."

"OK," Daniel replied, "except...what the heck is an A.T. Field, and why does an Evangelion need a soul to produce one?"

Confused, Rei simply stared at Daniel for a moment. "They are the barriers between souls. The Evangelions can extend these barriers to protect themselves, and their pilots, or to penetrate the A.T. Fields of the Angels, as the A.T. Field is inpenetrable to conventional weapons."

"Huh. OK, I see how that could be a problem." Daniel replied. Suddenly, he could feel a tingling on the back of his neck. "Rei, would you excuse me for a moment?"

As Rei nodded her assent, Daniel pulled himself up and out of phase with the local dimension, where he found Oma Dasala waiting for him.

"Daniel," she looked at him sternly, "we need to talk."

"Oh?" he replied innocently. "What about?"

Oma sighed. "Our counterparts in this dimension made a mistake, Daniel, and the humans on this version of Earth have gained access to things they barely understand, that should be better left alone."

"Such as the Evangelions," he pondered

"Yes, such as the Evangelions." Oma looked at him with a disapproving eye. "You've already discovered a great deal, and you're already considering how you can 'fix' things here, aren't you?"

"Not yet, no. I don't know that I have enough information to even begin to do that, Oma, and while what's been done to Rei is terrible, I need to know more before I could even begin to try to fix things."

"One cannot provide the answer if one doesn't know the question," Oma smiled. "I knew you were an ideal candidate to join us."

Daniel sighed. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to try to uncover those questions, though, Oma."

"Of course not. Helping others is an essential part of your nature, as is uncovering mysteries. I had no doubts that you'd try to help these people, to fix the mistake we made in this dimension...which is why I sent you hear in the first place." Oma froze for a moment. "I have to go. Together, our energy levels draw too much attention to ourselves from the others. I'm uncertain as to how much I'll be able to return to help you. You're on the right track, though. Rei is the key to unlocking this mystery. Understand, and help her, and you can still save this Earth...."

With that, the elder Ascended being vanished. Daniel tried sensing her on the planes nearest to him, but couldn't do so.

"Well," Daniel mused, "titanic Ancient mystery, cryptic half-alien teenage girl, fate of the world in the balance, and nobody to help me. No pressure here."


End file.
